Haviland Hall is significant for its role in John Galen Howard's Beaux Arts plan for the University. The building is important to the plan by virtue of both its placement and its design qualities.

Haviland Hall is also important because it was built during Howard's last year as supervising architect, and differs from the majority of its predecessors in that it is built of reinforced concrete rather than the more expensive granite.

Howard came to Berkeley in response to the regent's 1900 competition for a cohesive plan of the University.

The prospectus of the contest embodied the principles of the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris. The future campus was to be monumental, cohesive, and permanent. Berkeley was to become "The Athens of the West".

Howard, who had studied at the Ecole, placed fourth in the competition but became the supervising architect for the plan of the French architect Benard. Howard's revised plan of 1914 is a combination of his own and Benard's original intentions. The plan, which unlike Benard's, closely describes the natural terrain, is molded around a central east-west axis oriented towards the Golden Gate.